Algerian truffles gain international fame

[Al-khiyal]

Algerian truffles gain international fame

April 20, 2009 -- The truffle season in Algeria is working magic this year. Traders are happy with the profits, export and freight companies can barely meet the demand and, most encouraging of all, many new job opportunities are available for those willing to pick the delicacy.

Truffle mushrooms are plentiful in the southwest Algeria desert. Farmers do not need to put in any effort to grow them. All they need is the rain.

This year, the sky was generous.

Since the beginning of the season, trucks drive into Houari Boumediene Airport in Algiers loaded with truffles and drive out empty. The cargo destination: the Gulf States and Syria.

The Algiers-Dubai flight, for example, has been so overwhelmed that freight managers had to limit the quantities of truffles loaded every day. Airport officials said that only 15 tonnes are now allowed per flight, due to the lack of personnel and equipment.

Officials at the freight division of Air Algérie said more than 80 million dinars profit was recorded in February. And they can do much more if they had better resources, said freight division chief Achour Beldjilali.

Export companies are just as happy.

"It’s all going very well," said Ahmed Ghanem, who manages export company El Ahliya. "The truffles are selling like hotcakes, and customers are always asking for more."

Anouar Slimani manages a number of businesses in Dubai. He has been exporting truffles to the Gulf countries. Now is the time to expand, he said.

"I’m starting my first deliveries with the Syrians, sending quantities of two tonnes per flight. For the moment, it’s making a tidy sum. Next year, I’m hoping to set up business on my own."

In some areas, the product can barely meet the local demand, like in the Boussaâda region, where people consume most of the truffles they pick.

Young truffle hunters from Boussaâda and Bechar (800 kilometres southwest of Algiers) are surprised that their common food staple has turned into a big business, but they are not complaining.

"In the past, you would pick them just for your family or to supply the locals. Now that the Syrians want many of the truffles, we’re working non-stop," says Ahmed Moualy, a young man from Abadla, near Béchar.

"True, it’s seasonal work, but it’s good money," he adds.

But, given the high demand for truffles, the best places are under siege from the regulars.

"I learned this job from my father, who learned it from his father. We know the desert like the back of our hand. But now that the businessmen are into truffles, there’s competition. Sometimes, you have to use force to defend your territory. Sometimes, you have to sneak out at dawn to make sure no-one follows," Bachir Reguigui, from Béchar, tells Magharebia.

"The pressure from the big retailers, along with the exporters, means that we cannot meet all the demand," says young truffle-picker Moussa Touhami.

But he remains optimistic. "With the recent rain, the crop will be plentiful. I’m thinking, with some friends, of setting up a cooperative to store truffles and maybe to sell them too, outside of the Boussaâda region. Why not?"

[Al-khiyal]

Terfez on the table, truffles from the Sahara

GHARDAIA, April 29, 2009 (ANSAmed) -- They are still unheard of in Europe, but 'terfez', truffles from the Sahara, which have been precious ingredients in southern Algeria for millennia, are being exported to Gulf countries whilst the first websites selling the 'lightning children' are appearing just now. Gathered in the middle of the desert, from under the sand or in expanses of clay, terfez in fact grow after storms that hit the Sahara region in the winter season. In various sizes, and similar in appearance to Italian truffles, these fruits of the desert have a unique and exotic taste entirely different to that of their precious cousins. Tarek is one of many terfez vendors who arrive in the market place in Ghardaia, 500km south of Algiers, in the Spring, attracting the attention of the tourists visiting the M'zab Oasis. He explained to ANSAmed that ''local youths go terfez hunting to try to make some money.'' ''Truffles are still a wild fruit and their gathering is not regulated,'' Tarek continued, ''youths have learnt from their families which rifts in the ground house the terfez.'' The M'zab Valley, and the Boussada, Adrar and Bechar regions in south west Algeria, are the richest zones for these truffles. On average, one hectare might contain about 10kg of terfez, ''but the exceptional rains this autumn led to a record crop and companies that export terfez are constantly growing in number, in particular to Syria and Dubai.'' If at the beginning of the season, in March, the terfez can be sold for around one thousand dinars (around 10 euro) per kilogram, in April and May the price can fall to 200 dinars (2 euro). Tradition has it that these truffles have great aphrodisiacal properties and black, white or orange terfez are known as 'ground meat' for their nutritional value: they contain sodium, potassium, phosphorous, calcium and iron. Once they have been boiled in salty water to get rid of the sand, they can be used in traditional 'couscous' and 'tadjine' dishes, but can also be dried to be used throughout the year or can end up chopped into little pieces on a pizza instead of normal mushrooms.